‘Eagles need to eat too’: grouse moors take new approach to shooting

It was over in seconds. High over the grouse moor two hen harriers wheeled slowly around each other before, suddenly, the female darted underneath her mate to catch a freshly caught meal dropped from his talons and took it back to their chicks.

“That was a food pass,” said David Frew, the property manager of Mar Lodge, a vast Highland estate near Braemar in the southern Cairngorms. “You’re really lucky to have seen that.”

On many grouse moors in Scotland, hen harriers struggle to survive. The ground-nesting bird of prey is often shot, trapped or even poisoned to protect valuable grouse stocks from predation. On these shooting estates, the sight of a harrier, eagle or buzzard wheeling overhead would be a sign of failure.